


a series of connected links

by saltyfeathers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 10.20 coda, Episode Tag, M/M, dadstiel wth!!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 11:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3848629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltyfeathers/pseuds/saltyfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They get home late, and Dean tries not to act surprised when Cas follows them into the bunker, just like he tried not to act surprised when Cas asked quietly back in front of the mini-golf course if he could follow them back home in his car. Dean had stammered out a yes, caught off guard, but the more he thought about it on the drive home, the more it made sense. Dean’s had to say goodbye to kids who were kind-of-but-not-really his before, and it’s a lonely, lonely feeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a series of connected links

They get home late, and Dean tries not to act surprised when Cas follows them into the bunker, just like he tried not to act surprised when Cas asked quietly back in front of the mini-golf course if he could follow them back home in his car. Dean had stammered out a yes, caught off guard, but the more he thought about it on the drive home, the more it made sense. Dean’s had to say goodbye to kids who were kind-of-but-not-really his before, and it’s a lonely, lonely feeling.

Sam doesn’t even look back as he calls out a goodnight, heading down the hallway towards his bedroom, stretching. Dean drops his duffel onto the library table with a soft thwump, pulling out one of the chairs and collapsing into it. Much more gracefully, Cas takes the chair across from him. Dean nudges him with his foot.

“How you holding up?” he asks, moving the duffel bag to the side so he can see Cas properly.

Cas shrugs, looking way more tired than Dean would expect from an angel. He rubs his brow.

“Strangely,” Cas says. “This all has been… very overwhelming. And confusing.”

“Been there, buddy,” Dean says sympathetically. He stands up. “Claire’s a good kid, though. Strong.  She’ll pull through,” he smiles softly at Cas, “That should make it easier.”

“It doesn’t,” Cas says flatly, and Dean says, “I know.”

Cas declines the beer he offers, so Dean tells him to sit tight and heads to the kitchen to grab one for himself. As he’s reaching into the fridge, his shirt sleeve rides up just a little bit and he freezes, staring at the bare patch of skin there. He can’t even see the Mark, but he can feel it stirring under his skin. He rolls his eyes, grabs his beer, and tries to ignore it. Yeah, maybe he was a little rough on that guy back at the bar, but also that was the kind of guy who figured it was okay to give a teenaged girl a concussion, so Dean’s really not going to lose any sleep over it.

When he heads back into the library, beer in hand, he finds Cas sans trenchcoat, one elbow on the table, palm over his eyes, textbook “hard day at the office”. Dean reads the dejection like a giant neon sign hanging above Cas’ head, and walks over to his side of the table, clasping a hand on his shoulder.

“Jody’s gonna take good care of her,” Dean promises, letting his thumb just brush over the base of Cas’ neck before dropping his hand completely.

“That’s not all I’m worried about,” Cas says to the table.

“I know,” Dean says again. “This shit is complicated, man.” He sits in the chair beside Cas, angling it so that he’s facing him head on.

“I ruined that family,” Cas says, “I destroyed them.” His voice cracks a little. “If I had never come to earth in the first place, never taken Jimmy as a vessel, none of this would have happened.”

“Hey,” Dean says firmly, reaching forward. He pulls Cas’ hand away so that Cas has to raise his head and look at him. He blinks slowly at Dean, forlorn, and Dean hates it. “You saved the world, man. It doesn’t change what happened to that family, but it sure as hell means something.”

Cas shakes his head, swallowing hard.

“If I had the choice to do it all over again, I wouldn’t,” he says hollowly, and Dean tries not to take that to heart. He tries to imagine his life without Cas, and genuinely can’t. He’s sure as hell not going to go rooting around in his brain for how he felt all those months after Cas walked into that ravine and never walked back out.

“What happened, happened,” Dean says. “We all gotta live with our regrets, Cas.”

“I know.” Though he doesn’t sound pleased about it.

Dean takes a deep breath. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here,” he says, and it feels like he’s confessing a secret that the both of them already know. “For everything from pulling me outta hell to, I dunno, here and now, I guess.” He gestures awkwardly between the two of them.

The corners of Cas’ mouth lift, and his voice is fond when he says, “There are many things I regret, Dean, but our friendship is not one of them.”

Dean’s cheeks heat, but he manages to huff a laugh.

“Thanks,” he says. “And. Y’know. Same.”

The silence between them softens. Dean drinks the beer he’d almost forgotten about, and Cas runs a finger along the table, as if he’s communing with the tree it was cut from.

Eventually, Cas’ hand stills and he brings his gaze back to Dean’s.

“Do you want children?” he asks, no preamble, and Dean’s last sip of beer goes down just a little tight. He clears his throat, trying to sum up the sudden influx of contradictory thoughts bottlenecking on the tip of his tongue.

“Uh,” is what he comes up with. He thinks about mini golfing with Claire and trailing behind Cas at that mall while he searched for something he thought she would like. He thinks about Ben, who he came to love like his own, and Emma, who he barely knew at all. He thinks about that shifter baby him and Sam took care of for a while, how it felt to sing to him and cradle him against his chest. He thinks about helping Cas out with Nora-from-the-Gas’n’Sip’s kid, how Cas told him he sung her daughter to sleep and thought she was so beautiful that for a moment, he just stood over her crib while she slept, mesmerized. Dean remembers- and it’s a long time ago now- sitting on a bench next to a long haired kid named Lucas, drawing together and bonding over their broken families.

He thinks about serving Sam spaghettio’s and dry ramen for dinner when he was ten and Sam was six, and Sam crying because he was so tired of eating cold food. He remembers stealing some of his dad’s money and running across the busy highway to buy Sam something warm from the burger place there. They didn’t want to serve a ten year old, but Dean slapped down enough of John’s cash that they gave him his food without further complaint. The real complaining started when John came home for the night and found some of the money he’d won at pool last week gone missing. Suffice to say, from that night on Dean used whatever cash he could scrape together to buy Sam stuff John didn’t think was important, and never went near his father’s money again.

“I dunno,” he finally says, blinking back into the present.  “The way we live, I can’t even think about that stuff.” He shrugs. “Maybe in another lifetime. Another universe.”

Cas is looking at him so sadly that Dean’s afraid he’s going to say something neither of them can come back from, so he rushes to say something first.

“What about you? Could you, um. Can angels even…?” he trails off vaguely.

“You’re aware of Nephilim,” Cas says, shifting slightly in his chair. “But I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about.”

“Not exactly.”

“When I was graceless, I could’ve fathered a child,” Cas says. “And I suppose I still could, though that child wouldn’t exactly be fully human.”

“What about—would you ever want to?” Dean asks, almost shyly, and he feels like he’s prying, but it also feels strange that he doesn’t already know.

Cas looks down at the table for a moment, as if he himself has never considered the question.

“I’m… not sure,” he says. “I mean, Claire is… well… Claire has an attachment to this form, at least.” He plucks at his sleeve. “Though she’s certainly not my daughter, I do care for her.” He’s speaking slowly, as if he’s just parsing this all out for himself. “I certainly hold affection for children.” A gradual smile appears on his face. “They speak very plainly and are very small. I appreciate that.” His smile grows. “Babies are very cute,” he tells Dean sagely, and Dean actually laughs.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “Yeah they are.”

So maybe he lied. Maybe he has thought about it before. All theoretical, of course. He thinks he would build the crib himself. He doesn’t know what color the nursery would be. Something soothing. Something calm. He’d make a mobile with devil’s traps and angel sigils hanging from it, just in case. He imagines watching his daughter (and it’s always a daughter for some reason, though of course he wouldn’t mind a son) as she sleeps, in some kind of soft knitted jumper he’s sure Sam could figure out how to make. He thinks about how it would feel to hold a tiny hand in his as they cross the street, checking both ways for cars before they go. He wonders what stories he would read her before bedtime, and which Led Zeppelin album he’d introduce her to first. He thinks he would play her The Rain Song, maybe, on an old record player in the living room. She could fall asleep to it, he thinks. Or maybe he’d hold her in his arms as he walked around the room, softly singing along and kissing her on the head between verses.

He’d name her Mary.

“You would be a good father, Dean,” Cas says quietly. “You have an incredible amount of love to offer.”

Dean’s face heats again, and though everything in him is begging to scoff at Cas’ compliment, Dean can’t help but smile. Cas’ words have left a trail of warmth in their wake.

“You think?” he says.

“I know,” Cas corrects, mirroring Dean’s smile.

Dean’s wanted to kiss Cas many times over the past few years, and this moment is no exception. Cas believing in him as a father makes Dean’s chest feel tight with emotion, but it somehow manages to loosen everything else. He wants to hold this feeling close to him, tuck it snugly beneath his ribcage. This is how Cas makes him feel, he thinks.

It’s not the right time or the right place for Dean to finally kiss Cas (when is it ever with them) but when he catches Cas’ eye, he thinks the feeling might be mutual.

Soon, but not yet.

Maybe after they sort the Mark out. Maybe after they finally snuff out Metatron. Maybe once hell is closed for good. Dean doesn’t know when, but he’s past the point of pretending that’s not where they’re headed. They’ll get there eventually.

Dean thinks about his completely theoretical child and his completely theoretical future, and he thinks about the one thing that was missing from all that. But when he looks up at Cas sitting right in front of him, he’s pretty sure it’s been there all along. It’s just a matter of slotting everything into place.

“You wouldn’t be half bad yourself, y’know,” Dean says. “At the whole dadding thing.”

Cas reaches out, looking like he’s about to pat Dean on the knee, but Dean intercepts his fingers, slotting his palm against Cas’.

“Thank you,” Cas says quietly, squeezing Dean’s hand.

They sit like that for a long time, hands intertwined. The hand that’s not currently holding Cas’ is resting on his knee, and Dean can’t help but think he has two hands for a reason.

Maybe someday he’ll have another, much smaller hand to hold as well.

**Author's Note:**

> you guys i'm not even that big on dadstiel but i got weirdly emotional writing this lol
> 
> (also if u imagine dean singing/ swaying along with his baby daughter while they listen to the rain song u will probably cry!!! [here is a link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4v-_p5dU34) if u want to do just that. edited to add: if u imagine cas watching them from the doorway with a small fond smile on his face it will make u cry more!!!!!!)


End file.
